Damian or Cap?
“Chloe, I saw everything.” Damian’s hurt voice told me. “And you! How dare you come here and steal my girl!” he said, walking towards Cap. Cap stood his ground.
“Please, Damian, no.” I knew instinctually that if Damian fought Cap, Cap would win.
“I can’t believe you, Chloe.” He said. I walked closer to him to plead my case. “No, you stay back! I can’t, I just can’t have you here next to me. Chloe, I don’t want to hear your shit about how it’s not how it looks like or how you can explain. But I'm gonna give you a fair chance and let you choose because despite the fact that you just shat, spit and trampled over my heart, I do love you.
“It’s me… or it’s him.”
Well, I was too worked up to make that choice right then and there. Instead, I told them both to leave and I shut the door on love. Once again, Jennifer Aniston, Katherine Heigl, Kristen Stewart, and all those other bitches that went on and on about how great love was, betrayed me. Follow your heart my ass.
Monday came along and I pulled a Cap, I chose not to go to school. Instead, I avoided them at all costs. I refused to answer any calls, and locked all entries to the house, allowing only Bonnie to come in. I felt safe now that killer-dude was dead – the police came and I told them the story Cap told me (that Bonnie and I had killed him in self-defense), with now quickly healing burn marks to prove my innocence – and even safer with Bonnie now sleeping over at my house.
I was officially Anti-Romance Chloe. Aside from shutting out any Cap and Damian related thoughts, there was the hating America’s sweetheart thing, burning every Jane Austen book I owned, laughing at Lifetime’s cheesy movies, and several other unmentionable things that would tarnish my feminine reputation.
On the outside I looked like a pissed-off grieving widow, but on the inside – though I didn’t want to admit it – I was dying, crying every time I saw something that reminded me of my loves. I’d never been in such a rut in my life. Throughout the boy-crushing part of my life there’d been Damian and Damian alone, now there was Damian and Cap.
“No!” I told myself. “There’s no way you’re thinking about them. After all they put you through, you at least deserve some you-time,” I said trying my best to convince myself that what I was saying was the truth, but to no avail. Instead, I was left in my bed utterly alone and bawling like an idiot.
Why couldn’t love be simple? I mean, it’s a simple word, just four little letters. But it’s probably the most powerful word in the history of humankind – alongside hate, of course. So then why couldn’t it be simple? Why did it have to be so damn complicated? Why was it that you were able to love many people at one time, but at one point you’d have to choose between them, undoubtedly leaving you regretful even if you made the right choice? Why could love bring so much joy and yet, so much pain at the same time? Why couldn’t love be like love in fairytales: boy meets girl, boy falls I love with girl, then they all live happily ever after? Why did it have to be that girl had to make a choice between the guy that’s been there for her all her life, and the guy that showed up about a month ago? Why, oh why couldn’t I have both?
Because I had nothing to preoccupy myself with, I was left with questions and questions that were left unanswered. And the more and more I tried shifting my thoughts away from Cap and Damian, the more and more they seeped into my thoughts, sapping my dignity away with a single virtual glance. I was at a crossroad that could change the way everything in my life worked, but I put up a valiant job to ignore it.
Being alone isn’t good, I decided.
But what could I do now? I loved Cap more than anything in my life. Simple choice then, right?
Wrong. I loved Damian too, which meant I didn’t want to hurt him. And part of me wanted to choose him, and that part was growing. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to choose Damian because it was out of love, or because he was the safe choice.
Fuck love.
Friday.
The weak lolled by with me tucked in my bed, reluctantly watching Lifetime movies or TiVo Gossip Girl. I’d still refused to come to school, claiming to be horribly sick, which technically wasn’t a lie. I was sick, lovesick. No matter how cheesy that sounded, it was the utter truth.
The whole school week I’d been in my bed and I’d only bothered to wash myself twice this week and I was sure I was stinking up the place. My kitty cat seemed to be my only comfort now, well besides watching horror movies about lovers being killed for being promiscuous (oh, how I love Friday The 13th!). Okay, so maybe that was petty, but at least they died together and weren’t huddled up in their bed wishing the world would just end.
Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable played through the speakers of my headphones. If I didn’t think that Cap and Damian were irreplaceable, maybe the song would’ve helped. But since that wasn’t true, the song made my sullen mood worse.
Bonnie was getting worried about me but she didn’t say anything until she saw me huddled in my usual position, eyes glistening with fresh tears, hair unbrushed for six days, listening to Eminem’s Kim – not exactly something that would uplift any female, but at least it wasn’t Mariah Carey singing about how great and special love was.
“Okay, Chloe, I’d let you mourn for almost a week now in hopes that you’d turn into super-feminist and start prancing around singing Single Ladies, So What or Womanizer. But it seems what I’d done should leave me in penitentiary prison for years if you’d started listening to Mr. I-think-I’m-all-that-with-my-white-boy-lyrics Eminem, and such a vulgar song, too.” She said, tapping her foot. A smile – the first one for the week – threatened to break across my unglossed lips.
“Well, he wants to kill Kim. I want to kill Cap and Damian, okay. I'm tired of feeling like a whore, Bon.” I told her honestly, crying on her shoulder when she came to lie next to me.
“Oh Chlo, you're not a whore. If anything, you're brave to shut them out.” She tried lying, but Bonnie wasn’t the world greatest liar. So when I gave an alarmingly skeptical look, her speech changed. “Okay, so maybe you're being coward for not facing them, and you're feelings. But, I think that the more you lay here, balled up and refusing to make a decision, the more it’s gonna eat at you, Chlo. I know you; you'll make a decision and stick to it. It’s not going to be the most easy thing to pick one and let the other go, but if you don’t you might end up losing them both.”
“I know. It’s just... just that I don’t know who to choose. I love Cap, but I love Damian too. And I want to hurt neither of them. I'm lost, Bon.” I said, taking another tissue out the box. “Who should I choose? How do I let the other one go without losing him? How do I make a choice that doesn’t just affect me?”
“Those are all good question, Chlo. Now you know how I'm not Capriano’s biggest fan, right?” I nodded in agreement. “But he said he loves you, so I can’t judge him any more than I can judge Damian.
“Look, once my mother told me – before she died – that if I'm ever stuck in a rut like this, I should visualize my life with each of them. The one that’s most clear and the one I can picture spending the rest of my life with, despite our faults, is the one I should choose.”
“If only it were that easy,” I grumbled.
“Look Chlo, I know it’s not the most original and uncheasy speech in the world, but I hear it helps.”
I sighed.
“My mother also told me that love is like a flawless diamond, it can’t be made… it has to be found. And you found love, Chloe. And love found you, that’s more than anyone can ever ask for, and something Jennifer Anniston would kill for. So embrace it, don’t shove it away.”
No matter how cheesy it sounded, Bonnie was right. Tonight I had to make the choice, a choice that would make or break me.
I just hoped I’d make the right one.
Let’s look at things this way:
First there was Damian Wolford.
I loved Damian; I’d loved him since middle school. My love for him was never gonna change and his love for me was always constant. Proof, even though I’d probably broken his heart the night I promised to be with him forever, he’d given me a chance which was more than I could ask for – if I’d seen him canoodling with Meghan, I would’ve probably castrated him. Again, Damian had been there for me since forever, there wasn’t one time I can remember when he’d hurt me the way Cap had several times. Therefore, I should be picking him, right?
If only because as much as I loved Damian, I loved Cap too.
Now there’s Capriano Delguard.
Positives – Cap was handsome, intelligent, mysterious and I loved him unconditionally. Negatives – Cap was handsome, intelligent, mysterious and I loved him unconditionally.
He was the guy that dominated my brain night and day. He was the guy I’d loved since the day I met him. He was the guy I felt like I’d known long before our eyes connected on that fateful – there I said it – day. He was the guy that captivated me with his entire being. He was the guy whose lips were made for mine. He was the guy I felt like I was made for.
But he was also the guy who hurt me too many times to count. He was the guy whose mood and feelings were never predictable. He was the guy who had a past, an uncertain past he no doubt wanted to be kept secret. He was the guy who himself said that he wasn’t good for me. He was the guy I knew if I let in too much, then my life would be hanging on a thread.
But perhaps the most influential part was that he was the guy that told me he hated how much he loved me. Told me that even the word love was too small of a word. Told me that he loved me so much he was willing to let me go. Told me that if he let his feelings for me get the best of him, then I was doomed. He was my forbidden love.
How was I to choose between a guy who loved me so much that he’d never want to hurt me, and a guy that loved me so much that he’d hurt himself to spare me? How was I to choose a guy that I knew I could live a happy, normal life with and a guy who I knew would be the most dumb thing I’d do if I let myself succumb to him? How do you choose between what’s right, and what’s forbidden? How do you choose between the person you're should be and the person who you are meant to be?
That’s just it, you can’t. All you can do is let your heart decide, and pray the choice doesn’t destroy you.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Bonnie asked as I twirled my Winston ring.
“No, but I have to.” I said to her, climbing into my SUV. I’d made a choice, a choice that could create or destroy me. The choice I knew was the right one, but was terrified of the outcome.
A note on the bonnet written in blood red ink stopped me dead in my tracks.
I looked at Bonnie, who looked at me with wary eyes. My heart thudded as I reached for the note. I gulped as I read what the note said.
Choose Damian.
That was all the note said, nothing else. Just ‘Choose Damian’. Even though the letter said nothing else or never had an ‘or else’ attached to it, it still carried a threatening menace that chilled both Bonnie and I to the bone.
I was on my way to Damian’s house, clutching the steering wheel tightly. The message of the note still clung on my consciousness, eating me up letter by letter. The message wasn’t a threat, nor was it a choice, it was a command. Whoever had written it told me to choose Damian and if I didn’t, who knew what would happen.
The handwriting wasn’t familiar so I couldn’t pinpoint it to anyone, certainly not Damian (unless he dramatically changed his handwriting). It couldn’t be Cap’s either, because I knew Cap wouldn’t be succumb to hidden threats, and it couldn’t be the stalker (because he was dead and all), so who could it be? Who’d want me to choose someone so badly they’d sent encoded threats to me? Who was hell-bent on ruining my life, no matter if it cost me dearly?
Meghan.
The thought was tempting and I believed it for a second, but other than that it was quickly dismissed. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. Meghan wouldn’t do that. Because (a) it wasn’t her handwriting, (b) Meghan didn’t have the power to make me quiver in fear like that (c) she wasn’t smart enough with all that bitchiness clouding her capacity to think logical thoughts and, (d) she didn’t have the keys to my car.
Whoever had written the letter could somehow get into a locked car, write the note, put it so that it would the first thing I saw, knew I was going to make the choice today, and relock the door behind him/her/it. Besides the actual note, that was what scared me the most.
I stopped in front of Damian’s house and hesitantly got out of the car, my heart beating rapidly in nervousness. I walked up to the door, newfound rain pelting me with water, and knocked timidly. Hopefully no one was home and I could go home, and cuddle with my cat and watch another cheesy slasher flick. No such luck.
Damian opened the door not long after, his face brightening instantly as he saw me.
“Chloe! Come, come in.” he said, a smile broadening across his perfect face. I swore I could see that his brown eyes had been crying lately. My chest clenched. I stepped into the doorway.
We were in Damian’s room. There was something different about it since the last time I was here. The walls were still the same deep red, the red oak floors were still polished to perfection, he still had pictures of us on his bedside table, random guy-posters were still plastered onto his wall, and the king-sized bed was still situated in the center of the room. Everything physical was still the same. So then, what was different?
And then it came to me. Damian’s room felt colder, menacing, as if some otherworldly mischievous, dark force had now begun to reside in Damian’s room. I gulped.
I stood at the doorway, starring right into his warm eyes and began.
“Damian, I came to tell you something.” I said to him feeling like one of the Bachelorettes on that TV show, all I was missing was a ring a bouquet of roses.
“Yes?” he said excitedly, I couldn’t meet his gaze.
“I can’t be with you anymore, Damian.”
“What?” he said, his voice so heartbreaking it made me almost consider saying ‘just kidding, baby!’. Almost.
“I've chosen to be with Cap.” My voice strained to stay calm.
“Why? What does he got that I don’t got, huh? Unless, unless he fucked you silly?” Damian said. His voice filled with hurt laced with anger.
“What! No!” I yelled, dumbfounded.
“Then what, Chloe. What does he have against you? Why are choosing some dick that just came in a month ago, whereas I've been with you – there for you – for years now? What did I do wrong?” he said, beginning to yell before his voice was nothing but a timid whisper.
“Nothing Damian, you never did anything wrong it just that I –”
“That you don’t love me anymore. That I'm nothing to you now that you got someone else.” He said as if he’d gotten the greatest epiphany of his entire life.
“I still love you Damian! That will never change.”
“Well, if you love me then you wouldn’t have done this to me, Chlo. If you loved me you would’ve ended things with me – or even him – the minute you were uncertain of us, even if nothing happened between the two of you. You could’ve spared me the pain of seeing you, kiss, embrace and proclaim your love to another man, right on our anniversary.” His eyes were glistening with tears, the look of pure agonizing pain emanating through them. I died knowing that I’d caused him so much pain.
“I'm sorry Damian, it wasn’t planned!’ I tried defending myself.
“Of course it wasn’t, it never is! But the least you could’ve done was have the decency to have done it on another day, or broke up with me long before there was a chance of something happening between the two of you. Rather than killing me inside by your actions. Did I even cross your mind when you said you loved another man? Did you even think of me when you left me that evening?”
I looked down in shame.
“Say something, Chloe! For God’s sakes, say anything. Say that you don’t love me. Say that what we had wasn’t real. Say that you'd never loved me. Say that my feelings for you don’t compare to his. If you say any of those things, then I’ll leave you forever.”
“I –” but before I had the chance to say anything to him, his lips shut my mouth.
He kissed me with a viscous, pleading passion that left me limp. His kiss made me quiver with passion that matched even Cap’s. I didn’t even have the chance to stop his tongue from entering my mouth. But in his defense I never put up a fight to stop him, wholeheartedly investing in our kiss.
Damian had never kissed me like this, never with such passion and anger in one earth-shattering armless embrace. My heart beat even more rapidly as he crushed me onto the wall behind me, his hands entwining in my hair. My arms locked around him and I rubbed my hands down the bumps of his back, still felling his tensed muscles through his white tank.
Reluctantly, he broke the kiss, both of us panting for air.
“Tell me that you felt nothing when I kissed you, and I’ll never bother you again.”
I did. I felt a whirlwind of emotions as we kissed – namely passion and desire. But every time he kissed me, I was thinking about Cap. Even through the magical, ravenous kiss, I still had my heart clutching on to Cap. I was screwed.
“Damian, I, I do love you. And I felt a bunch of things when you kissed me,” his face brightened, “but I still choose Cap. God knows how much I care for, how much I love you. But –”
“You love him more,” he finished my sentenced. Never in my whole life had I ever heard or seen so much pain in one person, so you can imagine how bad I felt when I took off the Winston ring, my tears flowing freely from my face.
“Here, I'm sorry, Damian,”
“Get. Out. Of. My. House.” He said, enunciating every word, every syllable with such anger and pain, it made the tears hanging on the crevice of his eyes fall down.
“Damian, please. I'm sorry but –”
“Get out! Please Chloe; before I do something I'm gonna regret.”
“No, Damian please just listen tom me.”
“Unless you can say something that would stop the pain, rejection, betrayal in my heart. Unless you can stop me from dying inside at your every syllable of rejection, then I suggest you leave,”
“Damian –”
“Now!” he said with utter coldness.
“I'm sorry.”
“I'm sorry, too,” he said, shutting the door to his room in front of my face. I swear I could hear him cry. My heart shattered knowing that I’d made the man that once brought complete joy in my life, complete pain. If anything happened to him, it would my fault.
Two hours later I’d stopped